I didn’t really want to leave the court: Sue Bird

On 6th September following the elimination of Seattle Storm from the WNBA playoffs, the basketball star announced her retirement from the league with her sneakers hung-up.

During a tough Game 4 in their semifinal series opposing the Las Vegas Aces, the Storm lost 97-92, which brought an ending to Bird’s historical career. At first, she stepped with her team off the court in Seattle, prior to changing course and going back.

As per the reports of ESPN, the 41-year-old Bird stated in her postgame press conference, “I didn’t really want to leave the court. It felt like that’s where everybody was going, so I just followed at first. But I also wanted to kind of have one last moment to say thank you, to soak it all in, because in some ways it is a happy thing.”

Bird did not speak much after the loss, she said she is still figuring out her feelings at the end of her career.

She said: “I think initially I felt sad about the season and the game. I then think, as the emotions started to come to the surface, that’s also what I know deep down in that, that was my last game. So it was a combination of those two things, but overall it just feels kind of weird.”

Bird and the Storm were in a thought hoping to conclude her final season with another WNBA title, which would have been her fifth, but could not overcome the Aces. Following the loss, the crowd of Seattle crowd shouted and cheered for Bird.

“I’m proud of everything we’ve accomplished here,” she said. “Of course I’m sad, but there’s happiness too, to be able to have a moment like that with the fans, to have them chant the way they did. I know the tears don’t look like happy tears, but there’s a lot of happiness.” [H/T PEOPLE]

Bird is a native of New York, initially, she made her name known at the University of Connecticut in 1998 at the time she entered as a student-athlete. Recovering from an ACL injury afterwards, she assisted to lead the Huskies to a 2000 championship and she was capped with her undefeated senior year with a 2002 championship.

Overall initial pick in the WNBA draft was Bird in the year 2002 and was selected by the Storm. In the league during her close to two decades, she became a four-time WNBA champion, the league’s all-time assist leader, a 12-time WNBA All-Star, a five-time All-WNBA First Team member and was recently named to the W25 greatest of all time.

Not only that outside the WNBA, but Bird also gathered a medley of international accolades, which included her fifth Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics beside fellow five-time gold medalist Taurasi. The basketball star is also a five-time EuroLeague Champion and two-time Europe SuperCup winner.

Off the court, in 2017 Bird came out as lesbian, sharing in the same ESPN article that she was in a relationship with soccer star Megan Rapinoe, following the meeting at the 2016 Rio Olympics she started dating. After four years the couple got engaged in October 2020.

Even though her basketball career has come to an end, Bird is persisting to be a pioneer.

She teamed up with fellow Olympians Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel and Alex Morgan to create TOGETHXR in March, a current media and commerce company which is focused on providing a platform for women and women’s sports.

The pay difference between male and female sportspersons is a highly discussed topic and it gained a huge pace after the United States Women Soccer Team charged the U.S. Soccer Federation on the basis of discrimination that the male footballers were paid more.

With the US Soccer Team captain Megan Rapinoe being the face of the team’s protest against the federation, the general population has been in major support of their claim. On the other hand, Sue has pointed out the WNBA still remains low in popularity compared to women’s soccer.

Sue Bird points out the ‘intimidating factor’ in women’s basketball

The recently concluded 2020 WNBA Finals saw Seattle Storm winning their fourth Championship. Sue Bird, the iconic point guard of the winning team, has put forward the notion that the higher number of ‘black, tall’ athletes in WNBA is the reason why it is less popular in the US, compared to Women’s soccer which has ‘white, cute’ players.

Speaking to CNN in a recent interview, Sue said: “Even though we’re female athletes playing at a high level, our worlds, you know, the soccer world and the basketball world are just totally different.”

“And to be blunt it’s the demographic of who’s playing. Women’s soccer players generally are cute little White girls while WNBA players, we are all shapes and sizes … a lot of Black, gay, tall women … there is maybe an intimidation factor and people are quick to judge it and put it down,” the Seattle veteran added.

ALSO READ: From COVID-19 to social injustice, the hurdles Breanna Stewart and her team overcame to taste WNBA Finals glory

Rapinoe, who is in a relationship with Sue, expressed a similar perception on the popularity of her team compared to female basketball players.

“When it comes to U.S. women’s soccer, the general perception is that — let’s face it — we’re the white girls next door. The straight, ‘cute,’ ‘unthreatening,’ ‘suburban’ white girls next door,” Rapinoe said earlier this month.

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